A method of communicating control information in systems that support multiple modulation schemes for communicating voice or data and control information. To provide backward compatibility dedicated control channels use the modulation scheme used in current systems, for example GMSK modulation scheme. Traffic channels and associated control channels use linear modulation schemes that have the same symbol rate. The modulation scheme of the associated control channel uses a reduced signal set of the modulation scheme used for traffic channels. Also, an in-band signalling procedure is used to indicate to a receiving station the modulation type, channel coding and speech coding used for a transmitted burst.